I think the uniquely American distaste for pubs in neighborhoods is what you are looking for. But what I noticed when I was a young solder stationed in Germany in the 1980s was how the different attitudes to drinking and to driving between West Germany and the USA were: German law allowed the purchase of beer at age 16, but the earliest you could get a driver’s license was 18 at the time. It seemed cars were deemed more of a risk than drinks were. And less essential.
It all changed over time, Germans being famed for their addiction to automobiles. But it was part of my original culture shock. And though the rail system was left to wither for the next 30 years, it still is my preferred method of travel.
I see also that the extreme right party in power in England have declared 20mph speed limits as anti-British (but surely they’re in miles so therefore not anti-british like those new fangled kilometres that are usable for maths?). I have heard that local councillers proposing 30kph speed limits have been getting threats also.
The pro-car/anti-human brigade really have lost the run of themselves haven’t they?
Cometbus expanded on this idea, suggesting that punks moving in are often the first (unwitting) step toward gentrification, then artists follow punks into the neighborhood.
I don’t know… I’m kind of skeptical of that narrative, honestly. Not that there can’t maybe be some truth to it, but I just don’t think it’s the complete story, and wonder if that narrative is papering over a lot of other things happening with regards to how gentrification unfolds.
Sarah Schulman has pushed back against it somewhat in her work on how the AID crisis paved the way for gentrification in NYC. I’ve been thinking about that with regards to ATL’s own history of gentrification, too.
Yeah, I’m sure the idea doesn’t explain/hold true for every city, but it sure seems to describe parts of East Austin, or Deep Ellum/Exposition Park in Dallas. I might’ve suggested Shaw in D.C. as well, except it seemed (to me) to have skipped the “starving artists” stage.
I really need to look into it and see if there are any dissertations on this specific issue of punk and gentrification, cause it’s an interesting question, for sure. I think one thing to keep in mind is that often punks were under serious duress in many cities by the police (see, for example LA in the early 80s where cops regularly came out in riot gear to attack punks).
But yeah, every city is gonna have a different dynamic, of course.
